Book Review – Short Sentence

Short Sentence – A Crime Short Story Collection from Bloomsbury – (2013) – Start with a short story written by an established author in the field.  Then challenge other authors to pick the idea and go their own nefarious way with the concept.  That’s the idea behind “Short Sentence”.

In this case there are five established crime authors who lay down the concepts.  Parker Bilal sets up “Deception”, Conor Fitzgerald offers “Bad Judgement”, Anne Zouroudi gives us “Payback”, Thomas Mogford explores “Secrets and Lies” and James Runcie finishes us off with “Obsession”.  The entries into the contest had to be 1,000 words or less so this is a quick read (a total of 47 pages).

But what a read along the way!  The five winning authors ( Sarah Evans, Jan Snook, Calum Macleod, Mary Waters and Alex Cooper) rise to the challenge and give you some reading to savor.  This is the kind of writing that leaves you wishing there were more.

For fans of crime fiction this is a great addition to the reading queue.

Rating – **** Recommended